From the history books, we can easily find that there were many "small white faces" among men in the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties. Wu Zetian's brothers Toy Boy, Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong are typical "gigolo". The Book of the Old Tang Dynasty says that the Zhang brothers are "beautiful in clothes and powder", but it is even more "people say that Liulang (ranked sixth) looks like a peach blossom, and then think that the lotus looks like Liulang, and the non-Liulang looks like a lotus."
Men dressed as modern "shemale" probably have a lot to do with the love of "small white face" by powerful women in Tang Dynasty such as Wu Zetian and Princess Taiping. Wu Zetian's criteria for choosing beautiful teenagers as guards are "white and beautiful". Zhang Changzong, "Fufen Zhu Shi", has been imitated by the government and the public since the powerful women in the upper class like "Little White Face". It is becoming a big fashion that men do beauty, women make up and dress themselves unconventional.
The Book of the New Tang Dynasty records that Zhao Kuangning, our ambassador to Shannan East Road at the end of the Tang Dynasty, was "proud and dignified". He is not only gorgeous in appearance and rigorous in temperament, but also likes to decorate his appearance. Whenever he freshens up, he orders the waiter to put two big mirrors in front of him and take pictures of himself. Li Shanfu, a poet in Tang Yizong's time, has a beautiful appearance. Her hair is more than five feet long. After each bath, she asked her second maid to "comb her long hair with a gold plate". When guests visit, they often mistake it for a woman.
Shen Jiji, a novelist in the Tang Dynasty, first described the romantic genius in his anthropomorphic book Ren Zhuan. This Wei Ying found that a friend recently found a stunning beauty (actually a fox spirit), and it was very common for men to use lipstick at that time because of "bathing in the neck with a towel". Of course, romantic men like Wei Ying are also used to "painting with powder", putting on foundation and applying face oil, which became popular among men during the period of Wu Zetian.
Yan Lu, the former prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, was good at dressing up and once became the object of imitation by fashionable men. Yan Lu's steamed bread (a kind of soft towel wrapped in Baotou) is beautiful in style and soon became all the rage. In order to do something unconventional, Yan Lu cut off the foot of the towel. Therefore, when an insider meets someone in the street who imitates Lu Yan's original hoe and shows it off everywhere, he will sneer and say, "Lu Yan's former servant (that is, the prime minister) has long since stopped wearing this style."
During the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties, fashionable men also became popular. The custom of using incense to smoke clothes probably began in the Han Dynasty and was very popular in the Tang Dynasty. The Book of Old Tang Dynasty said that Liu Zhongying, a former Taiping messenger, was "proud of his courtesy" and "the stable was nameless and his clothes were not fragrant". Officials don't "smoke clothes with incense" as one of the examples of "boasting with ceremony" in history books, which shows the prevalence of men's incense at that time.
Men in this period also wore hairpin flowers. Zanhua is a kind of decoration and beautification that ancient women put flowers in their hair bun or crown hat. It is made of flowers, flowers or silk. In the paintings of the Tang Dynasty, there are many images of women wearing hairpin flowers, such as pictures of ladies with hairpin flowers. But at the latest, there were records of men's hairpin flowers in Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty.
During the reign of Xuanzong, King Ruyang was nicknamed the flower slave. He used to play Jie drum for Xuanzong. Xuanzong was very happy and personally picked a red hibiscus flower and put it on his hat. On another trip between Xuanzong and Su Xiang (a writer in the Tang Dynasty and a former librarian in China), Su Xiang improvised a poem. Xuanzong thought it was beautiful, so he put the "Imperial Flower" (which Xuanzong himself wore) on Su Xiang's headscarf. It can be seen that men's hairpin flowers were popular at least in the court at that time.
The custom of men's hairpin flowers can also be confirmed by many poems in this period. Du Mu has a poem saying, "It's hard to laugh in the world, so you must put chrysanthemums on your head." This chrysanthemum is stuck in a man's head. Since the Five Dynasties, men's hairpin flowers became popular, and even became a common practice in the late Five Dynasties, and even became a part of the official etiquette system. During the Kaiping period in Hou Liang, there was a man named Li Mengfu, who was as white as jade. He often arranges flowers, walks among restaurants in the city, sings and drinks loudly, and writes a poem saying, "It's no problem to arrange flowers and drink, and it's no problem to sing fishing songs."
In the late Tang Dynasty, people made great efforts to hire people to steal valuable orchids from noble families. On the day of his death, the king of Fujian put some flowers on his head. When you leave the palace, the curtain blows and the flowers fall. He "climbed the whole flower" but was killed by the guard.
Of course, all these can be done by literati and so-called romantic talents. Men's tastes in Sui and Tang Dynasties may be extraordinary.